‘Success in Pharma’ Series: David Kidd’s 7 Winning Traits

If you’re in the pharmaceutical industry you’ll have heard of the Pf Awards, the largest sales awards in the UK for our industry. It is no easy feat to take home one of the coveted awards, so when I witnessed David Kidd win three in one night in March 2021, I was curious to find out more about him. Especially since he had only joined the industry 18 months prior. I decided to invite him for a virtual interview so that I could get to know him better and share his story with my connections. 

David’s Background

 There was something so lovely about David’s demeanour that really appealed to me when I first met him during the virtual Pf Awards ceremony. He came across as humble, extremely determined, and very talented while quietly confident without an ounce of arrogance. David was born and bred in Aberdeen, where he currently lives. He studied Sports Science at university and after graduating started a position in sales within the educational technology industry. He initially focused on the development of physical activity and intervention in children, before taking a position in pharmaceutical sales in November 2019 with Thornton & Ross.

 There is no doubt he is talented. Right? Eighteen months in the industry and he wins not one but three awards and was a finalist for another award that night. I guess if you are like me, you are curious to find out how he did it. Well, David had my full attention as he went on to reveal his whirlwind first year in the industry and how he got to this point.

 Experience in the Industry

 David first heard about the Pf Awards during a National Sales Conference in March 2020 in Birmingham. He recalls vividly when their sales director asked the final candidates in the previous year's Pf Awards to stand up so the whole company would give them a round of applause. At the time, David had no idea what the Pf Awards were and asked his manager why winning them was so important to his company. He then decided he was going to enter in 2021. Bear in mind at this point, David had only been in the Pharmaceutical Industry for four months.

 Entering the Awards

 During the Christmas break, he came across the Pf Awards website and remembered how important these Awards were and that he had decided to apply in 2021. He noticed the deadline for application submissions was at the end of January so he had to act quickly. So, when most of us were munching on mince pies and taking a two-week break over Christmas, David spent his holiday filling out application forms for three categories and entered: ‘The Future Leaders’, ‘Omni Channel’ and ‘Digitally Enabled Sales Professional’ categories. (He ended up winning the first two and being a short-listed finalist for the latter. To David’s delight he also unexpectedly won the ‘Outstanding Overall Candidate’ Award.)

 In order to get a clearer perspective of what he was up against, David contacted one of the former winners on social media to find out what kind of projects had been delivering the winning results. This helped David ensure his submissions were comparable with previous winners and his own mindset towards leadership and future leadership potential was on the same par. That certainly gave him a lot more confidence to prepare for the assessment day.

 On return to work in January, he met with his manager and shared his desire to apply for the awards. He began by saying he did not know if it was OK for him to put his foot forward but he had done his best to complete the application forms over the holidays. It transpired that Thornton & Ross were not planning to enter the awards in 2021 but after seeing that David had already filled out the application forms and the quality of his submissions, they decided to give him all the support he needed and help him go for the win.

 Those of you who have been a finalist in the Pf Awards will appreciate the amount of work you need to do to enter just one category, let alone three. Entering three categories is more than three times as challenging because you need to be in top form for each assessment, and some categories have two stages of assessment on the day. When I asked David about his strategy to prepare himself for the assessments, he told me about the advice from his guidance teacher for exam preparation. The guidance teacher advised David to prepare for exams in a way that you fill your head with so much revision that you know your topic inside out. Revise so much that you cannot wait to face the exam to get the information out of your head and shelf it. Sounds like a good way to tackle a challenge, doesn’t it?

David’s Winning Traits

Trait #1 Winners are decisive

 David deciding to enter in 2021, having only been in the industry for four months, was certainly decisive.

Trait #2 Winners set themselves challenging goals.

David says one of his big things is that he is driven by performance and attainment. So, when he realised the prestige and accolade that goes with winning the Pf Awards, he decided that he was not only going to enter, he was going to win.

Trait #3 Winners are driven.

David is a quietly confident guy; he is self-aware, determined and tenacity is his middle name. He says: “I am willing to work really, really hard for it. And that's not to say that I always win it, but I will not lose for lack of effort or for lack of commitment.”

 Trait #4 Winners adapt to new challenges and embrace digital with open arms.

A few weeks after the pandemic swept across the globe and we were in lockdown David recalls that no one, not even those with 60 years of Pharmaceutical experience, would have known what was to come in the coming months. The world changed dramatically around us all and embracing digital was the only choice the industry had. David spent the first seven months of the pandemic adapting to the new world and delivered on a number of projects in the digital environment and had a number of successes in the digital space.

Trait #5 Winners tenaciously commit to their cause. 

David spent his entire Christmas break filling out application forms, now that is commitment!

Trait #6 Winners are quietly confident

David had no idea of the scale of the talent he was competing with, but he entered regardless.

Trait #7 Winners play sports

David is a national league cricket player and believes that most of, if not all of his positive traits, his ambition, his drive, his leaderboard mentality, being self-critical and looking for marginal gains all come from sports to some extent.

Reflection

David owes his wins to his planning and preparation, tenacity, confidence, willingness to receive feedback, willingness to be self-critical, and use of technology for communication.

The last point about embracing digital and the ability to flex when the environment changed is something that many established sales professionals really struggle with. People who've been in an industry for many years, find it challenging to use omni channel and remote platforms may scare them. This is a generational gap that David did not have to face because digital communication is mostly all he has experienced when he joined the industry. I guess the generational gap does not need to stop us from embracing digital because as David put it so nicely in this quote,

“The world is full of people that are good at something. I mean, everyone is good at something if they put enough time and effort into it. And I think one of the most important things about being successful across a range of different things is the ability to identify what is transferable and then transfer it.”

I am confident that you too have a unique talent in pharmaceutical sales or communication that you have put years of effort into polishing and perfecting. Identify that talent and look for ways to transfer that to other areas of your life and career.

If you liked this story and would like to hear more stories of success, make sure to connect with me on LinkedIn, where I will be continuing my ‘Success In Pharma’ Series. https://uk.linkedin.com/mehrnazcampbell

P.S

If you find adapting to digital a challenge, you are not alone. Many senior executives in the Pharmaceutical Industry who have been brilliant at face-to-face selling have found the transition to remote selling difficult. Don’t be scared of technology, appreciate what the technology could be used for rather than how to use it. Click here to see how the Cheemia ReSET platform enabled Farid and Guy to help their global sales teams adapt. https://www.cheemiareset.com/case-study